


At an ungodly hour

by endzela



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Corporate, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Drama & Romance, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Sex, M/M, Original Character(s), Relationship Problems, a lot of cursing because it suits the theme (it doesn't), also some minor side pairings, and jack is a god banned from heaven, jack doesn't know how to be a human, oh god takes on a whole new meaning, rhys is the company man, takes place in the modern world but with a sci-fi and fantasy vibe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-09-18 11:50:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9383696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endzela/pseuds/endzela
Summary: Rhys has no luck in love, his boss is an asshole, and he's too kind for his own good. Jack gets banned from Heaven by other gods, he hates his flesh-prison, and he's pissed. What could possibly happen when the two of them meet?





	1. Call me Jack

”H-hey! Yeah, it’s me, Rhys. Listen, I had really fun last week, so I was wondering if we could meet again. Grab a coffee or lunch maybe? Um, call me when you get this.” Rhys hung up and sighed as he put his mobile phone back on the table, next to his empty coffee cup and a half-eaten croissant. He stared into nothingness. “She’s not going to call, is she?” It wasn’t really a question.

Vaughn raised his eyes from the newspaper, sending him an apologetic smile. “Better luck next time, buddy.”

“Ugh. What do I do wrong? I was sure that this time the girl liked me. I mean, we even kissed at the end of our date!” Rhys groaned, rubbing his temples. “Is it because I’m not attractive? Are my jokes bad? I mean, I know my jokes are bad, but I always restrain myself from telling them too much on a first date. Should I just give up and buy five cats and start my new life as a lonely cat lady?”

“Rhys, bro! Cheer up! There’s nothing wrong with you. Why would you even think that?” Vaughn insisted and stretched out to pat Rhys’ shoulder. “The people you’ve dated weren’t just the right ones for you. I’m sure you’ll find your significant other one day, and it’s most likely when you least expect it. Haven’t you seen any movies?”

“Yeah, I have, and that’s the problem. Unfortunately, I’m not a rich blonde business woman who gets stuck in an elevator with the hottest guy in the apartment building – I’m just… Well, me. And we don’t even have an elevator in our apartment building,” Rhys said, poking the half-eaten croissant. It looked disgusting with all the wet tomatoes pouring out of it. “It’s… really hard to go back to an empty apartment every night, you know. When there’s no one to welcome you home with a hug and ask how your day was. You- you have Lydia, and I’m happy for you guys, but I’m also kinda envious.”

Vaughn sighed, folding the newspaper away and pushing up his glasses. “Alright, that’s it. Tonight, after work, you and me, drunk. Okay? Let’s go out and have some fun to forget about your bad dates.”

A smile tugged at Rhys’ lips, but then he shook his head. “Wish I could, but it’s gonna be another late night at work. Vasquez gave me a new project this morning and set the deadline for tomorrow, and he said he’s going to, quote unquote, ‘chop my dick into pieces and feed it to his neighbor’s goldfish‘ if I screw it up.”

“Are you serious? What an asshole.” 

“Tell me about it,” Rhys muttered as he leaned back, making the chair creak.

He had started working for Hyperion eight years ago, loving his job back then, but six years later after starting there their senior vice president had suffered a fatal heart attack and a new one was promoted to the position from another city. Rhys had missed the introduction ceremony of his new boss, and he had almost dropped his jaw when Hugo Vasquez – his old not-so-nice-and-actually-kind-of-a-dickhead buddy from high school – had greeted him in the hallway with a shit-eating grin.

And now he had been stuck in the same position for two years with no promotions or bonuses in his salary. Which sucked ass.

“By the way, are you going to eat that? Just wondering,” Vaughn asked and nodded towards the leftovers of Rhys’ croissant.

“Uh, no. Go ahead,” Rhys said, putting his plate on top of his friend’s plate mountain. “I think I have to get back to being a slave anyway. My lunch break is almost over.”

“Crap, is it that late already?”

A waitress came up to them, offering more coffee, but Rhys kindly refused since he was about to leave. He caught her glancing towards his exposed cybernetic arm before she turned around, and his heart sank a little. He knew he should always have it covered up when he was outside, which he usually did, but it had been so hot in the café that he had taken his black coat off without a second thought.

“See you on Monday, Vaughn. Tell Lydia I said hi,” he said as he slipped into his coat, giving him a short smile.

The Hyperion building was just around the corner, so it didn’t take Rhys more than ten minutes to walk back. Even after all these years the big, towerlike building didn’t seize to amaze him; it stood in the middle of the city with its tens of thousands of glass windows reflecting the sunlight, and at night you could spot the huge neon yellow letters from miles away shining the word ‘Hyperion’ on top of it. People even said that you could see it from space, although Rhys doubted that. It was a great way of marketing the company, though.

He walked through the modernly decorated, black-and-white themed lobby to the elevator, feeling already the small annoyance of having to work so late again raise its head in his gut. One day he was going to become the boss of Hyperion, no matter how long it would take, and then he could kick Vasquez’s ass. Twice. And preferably literally.

The elevator let out a ‘ding’, and the doors opened to the floor nine.

“Rhys!” 

A woman dressed in tight orange and black clothes, carrying a massive pile of papers in her arms, jogged towards him with her high heels tapping against the tiled floor.

“Hi, Yvette, what’s up? Looks like you’ve got a busy night ahead of you, too,” Rhys grinned.

“I, well… About that… I hate to ask this, but could you do me a favor?” Yvette asked, out of breath, when she stopped in front of him.

The warning bells went off inside Rhys’ head, and his smile faltered a little. “What is it?”

“I have a meeting in the evening and I really can’t work overtime today, so could you please take care of some of these papers for me? I promise I’ll make it up to you!”

“Seriously? I, uh, I’m not sure…” He laughed, scratching the back of his neck. He already had the workload of three employees, and now Yvette asked him to do hers too? They weren’t even that close; they usually just greeted each other in the morning and chatted during coffee breaks.

“Please, Rhys!” Yvette pleaded, and a couple other workers walking past them raised their eyebrows.

“Alright, alright, I’ll do it. But you owe me a big favor, okay?” Rhys sighed as she handed him half of the papers with a bright smile. He couldn’t believe he had agreed to this.

“Of course, anything you need. Thanks, Rhys. I won’t forget this. I might even buy you lunch sometime.”

“Haha, yeah, no problem.” 

Rhys forced a smile on his face as Yvette waved him goodbye and continued on her way, and his gaze dropped to the extra work in his hands. At this rate he would work himself to death, if he already hadn’t. Maybe this _was_ afterlife and he was in Hell.

“Dammit,” he groaned under his breath and hurried to his cubicle.

Hours went by faster than Rhys had hoped, and soon almost everyone, even the usual late-night workers, on his floor had clocked out, leaving only him and some other man alone. The sky had turned pitch black outside, and every time Rhys raised his head from his computer to stretch his neck, he could see an exhausted reflection of himself on the window.

He was halfway done with the project when he heard rustling from the other worker’s cubicle, followed with a thump from closing a drawer and the sound of someone packing their bag to get ready to leave, and he realized that if he didn’t hurry up, he would have to stay there until morning. 

With the power of lukewarm instant coffee and a melted chocolate bar he managed to finish everything, eyes throbbing from staring at the computer so long without a wink of rest. His stomach had started giving out low rumbles two hours ago, and now the hunger had grown to the level of almost making him nauseous. He really should stop skipping his meals.

It was already five past four in the morning when he dragged himself out of the office, turning off the lights and making his way to the elevator. His steps echoed in the empty hallways, and then he stopped in his tracks, a shiver running down his spine.

He had definitely just seen a pale shadow float towards the stairs and disappear behind the corner.

“Don’t be an idiot, Rhys. You’re just tired,” he laughed, his voice much louder than usual. “You don’t even believe in ghosts. You’re a science guy, remember? Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Emmett Brown…” Despite his words, he half-walked, half-ran the rest of the way to the elevator and hit the call button feverishly until the doors opened and closed after him.

He half-expected the elevator to stop midway and a ghost to come and haul his ass to his death, but when nothing happened and the doors opened normally in the lobby, he let out a shaky breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding.

“Later, fucker!” he yelled to the empty building as he rushed outside. No ghost was going to stop him from leaving now.

It was unusually quiet outside. Most of the bars had closed an hour ago, so many of the partiers had gone home, and it was still too early for the other people to wake up. Rhys encountered only three people on his way to the bus stop, not daring to make direct eye contact with them in case they noticed his ECHO eye. It was the same color as his other eye when he wasn’t using it, but you could easily notice the sensors if you looked close enough.

Usually he didn’t feel unsafe while walking alone; just a little bit uncomfortable if people visibly paid attention to his arm and eye. It wasn’t uncommon to have a cybernetic prosthesis anymore, but the stigma of having them was strong, because some people still despised the idea of people implanting machines to their body. Even if having them made some things easier, like being able to scan the bus stop to see when the next bus was coming.

Rhys’ eyes started drooping immediately when he had seated himself to the back of the bus. The seat was comfortable, the purring of the bus felt soothing, a classical radio station was playing quietly in the background… 

He fell into a two-second slumber every now and then, and when he caught himself doing it he started blinking rapidly and pinching himself hard with his cybernetic hand. If he missed his stop, he would have to walk a long way back home.

His eyes flew open just as the bus drove past his stop. He jumped up like a rocket and yelled at the bus driver to stop, panic rising in his chest, and luckily the driver was kind enough to slow down and let him hop off thirty meters after the actual stop. 

“What a day,” Rhys mumbled, heading to a dark alleyway that led to his apartment building. He would go home, eat his fridge empty and then throw his drained self onto his bed and never wake up again. Yeah, that sounded like a good plan.

He stumbled upon something that was not supposed to be there and fell straight towards the ground, letting out a high-pitched yelp as his upper body hit the asphalt. The palm of his left hand stung as he hoisted himself off the ground, glancing around with a frown.

“What the shi- Oh shit!”

For five seconds Rhys thought he was dreaming. There was a person lying on the ground, covered just enough by the shadows that it was hard to notice him without paying attention. Parts of his fancy-looking clothes were torn and his skin had small cuts all over it, but the weirdest thing about him was his face: he seemed to have some sort of a mask on that resembled a regular face, almost like it was a part of him.

“What the hell am I doing? I- I have to call an ambulance… God!” Rhys’ fingers were like stone as he fumbled out his phone and tried to press the right buttons, almost forgetting the emergency number. “T-there’s a guy here who looks like he has been in a fight or… or something, maybe robbed, I don’t know. I just got here, and I don’t – “

A hand grabbed the collar of Rhys’ shirt, startling him and making him drop his phone.

“Who the fuck are you?” the man on the ground growled, his voice rough and raspy like he wasn’t used to talking.

 _“Is someone there? Hello?”_ a voice on the phone asked. 

The man’s eyes drifted from Rhys to the phone, and with a swift movement he mashed it to pieces. Rhys’ eyes widened, and he felt his blood run cold and legs turn into jelly when he tried to move.

“I asked you a question,” the man said, loosening his grip slightly.

“Y-you did? Yeah, uh, sorry, I was busy panicking and didn’t hear it properly,” Rhys answered, voice cracking. The grip tightened again. “Now that I think about it you asked me my name, right? Rhys, it’s Rhys!”

“Well, Rhysie, I think you can answer this question too then: where am I? No, wait... Don’t tell me this is Earth.” 

Was he on drugs?

“You must’ve hit your head pretty badly…” He let out a nervous laugh. “Where else would we be? You’re not from space, are you? I mean, you look like a human.” 

The man let go of him, groaning and closing his eyes like he was in pain. Rhys didn’t trust his ability to run right now, so he just backed away until his back hit the wall.

“I look like a human? Was that supposed to be a compliment? I would tell you to fuck off if I didn’t feel like my whole holy being was on fire while being stabbed with multiple needles from every direction possible and then being crushed by the weight of the world.”

“Right,” Rhys nodded, not understanding a word he was saying. “So, what exactly – ?”

“I’m a god, that’s what,” the man stated like it should have been obvious. “Call me Handsome Jack.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, hello, hey, thanks for reading. I really appreciate it! This fic is the result of me wanting to write a Jack/Rhys corporate AU but not wanting to make it too plain. There will probably be around ten chapters or so, depending on my inspiration, but the time between updates might be long for a while because I have important exams coming up in two months (in fact, I should be studying right now, so...). Comments and kudos make my days brighter~ And if there are any grammar mistakes, feel free to point them out.


	2. Gods need help too

Rhys didn’t know if the guy in front of him was serious or not. His eyes searched for some kind of a hint, something that would tell him that he was joking, that Rhys was _not_ talking to a _god_ , but Handsome Jack – as the man had called himself – seemed to be dead serious.

Jack heaved himself to a sitting position, gritting his teeth, and then a grunt escaped his mouth and was followed with a snap on his lower back like his spine was trying to get settled to its right place. “Are you going to help me or just stand there looking like an idiot? I’m not going to kill you if that’s what you think. Not yet anyway.”

“Well wasn’t that just reassuring,” Rhys muttered.

There was still time for him to escape, but out of his mind or not, the stranger did seem to be in a bad shape, and Rhys didn’t want to be responsible for someone’s death. And what if he was telling the truth? Angering a god was the worst thing he could do. He couldn’t even call for help since the man had broken his phone.

“Can you stand?” Rhys asked as he crouched down and took a hold of Jack’s shoulder and hand, pulling him up. He got the answer to his question right after when Jack’s legs gave out and he slumped against him, making Rhys stagger a few steps back under his full weight. “Uh, apparently not,” he breathed as he struggled to support both of them up.

“Nicely deducted, kiddo,” Jack said. “Damn, I can’t believe they actually did this to me… I’m going to fuck them up once I get back.”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“The other gods. The ‘holier-than-thou’ type of gods, who–“ his voice grew louder as he sent a glare towards the sky, “–had to send me down here without even giving me a chance to say anything!”

“Oh. Right. Okay.” Rhys paused. “So did it hurt when you–“ 

“Don’t you dare to finish that sentence.”

Rhys shut his mouth, swallowing the rest of the joke. He turned his head towards the way he had been heading to his apartment building, and really, he shouldn’t have even considered taking a man he had found on the streets into his home, but the nearest police station was far and he was hungry and tired and the man needed help. He could defend himself if it came down to it. 

“Let’s take one step at a time.” He put Jack’s arm on his shoulders and wrapped his arm around Jack’s waist, trying to support him the best he could. Jack had a sour look on his face the whole time as they walked, and although his legs seemed to start gaining more and more power, Rhys was still holding the most of his weight when they neared the front door of the building. 

The door opened after Rhys had entered a four digit code to it, and he had never been happier to see the long white staircase in his entire life. His heavy breaths echoed in the building as he dragged Jack next to him, drops of sweat starting to form on his forehead and his clothes feeling uncomfortably hot.

“What’s the matter, cupcake? Can’t take a little exercise?” Jack laughed.

“You’re heavier than you think, you know,” Rhys panted and stopped at the second floor to catch his breath. “Are you even trying at all? And stop calling me with your… weird nicknames.”

“Gee, I’m just showing my affection that way, Rhysie,” Jack said as he took his arm off Rhys’ shoulders and stood on his own. “Anyway, what floor is your apartment on?”

“Four,” Rhys answered, stomping up the stairs much easier than before since he didn’t have the extra weight to carry anymore.

When they arrived to his apartment, Rhys hesitated at the doorway for a fraction of a second before leading Jack in.

“I’m going to get something to treat your wounds,” he said while glancing at the clock. Around this time he would be waking up and starting to get ready for work. 

“What wounds?”

Rhys turned around and was about to ask if the guy was blind or had a CIP, but taking a closer look at his skin, he realized that the earlier cuts he had seen while Jack had been lying on the ground were all gone. There wasn’t a single scratch anywhere, and the only thing that reassured Rhys that he hadn’t hallucinated the whole thing was Jack’s clothes, still torn up. He also noticed that the man’s eyes were different color: one was blue and the other one was green. Weird.

“You’re creeping me out with your staring,” Jack commented.

“Yeah? It’s because you had cuts before, but now they’re all gone. What’s up with that? Or am I just going crazy? I-I’m pretty sure you had them.”

The man raised his eyebrows, examining his skin. “I might have some godly powers left in me. Which is a relief, because being a hundred-percent human would suck, no offence. You humans can’t even grow a limb back or teleport with a snap of your fingers. Not to mention causing tornadoes and earthquakes. And you die so easily!”

Rhys was slowly starting to believe that he was standing in the same room with a god. “What exactly do you gods do?” he couldn’t help himself asking. “People aren’t very religious anymore and we don’t sacrifice food or blood. To us you don’t exist.”

“You know, humans aren’t the center of the universe.” Jack flopped down on a couch like he owned the place, putting his feet on the coffee table. “We care about you as much as you care about ants. Sometimes we come down here, but most of the time we mind our own business. It’s a beautiful place, Heaven I mean. Much better than Earth. Although, I have to say, you live pretty nicely!” He looked around the living room and seemed pleased with the light blue walls and black furniture, decorated with plants and pictures of Rhys’ family and friends. “And if you’re asking what I personally do, I’m a god of war. That sums up pretty much everything, don’t you think?”

“Nice,” was all Rhys could say. He felt slightly light-headed after Jack’s explanation, but it could also have been because he was starving. “I’m, uh… going to fix us something to eat.” 

He escaped to the kitchen and leaned against the counter, trying to take in everything he had heard so far. How was he supposed to deal with Jack who was, on top of everything, a fucking god of war? If he had understood everything correctly, Jack was now a human, and he had no money, no place to stay, no identity, no nothing. Rhys couldn’t let him live with him forever, and neither did he want to. He would have to take him to the police station tomorrow or the next day. And also buy himself a new phone.

Rhys sighed after staring into the fridge for a minute, as if food would appear there the longer he stared, so he decided to make a couple of simple sandwiches and go to a supermarket the first thing after waking up.

“Took you long enough. I thought you died in there,” Jack said as Rhys walked back to the living room and placed the sandwich plate and two mugs of steaming hot tea on the table. “Is that all you eat? I take it back what I said about you living nicely!”

“Just eat it or go make your own damn food.”

“Alright alright, no need to get angry.”

Their breakfast was quickly eaten, and Rhys was so exhausted that he wasn’t sleepy anymore, despite his limbs feeling heavy and mind not being able to concentrate on anything that needed more than two seconds of thinking. He snapped out of the haze when he realized that he didn’t remember his own name.

“Listen, I’ve had a long day at work, so I hope you don’t mind if I catch some shut-eye. You can take a shower, watch some television, read a book, or whatever you gods do for fun, but just… don’t break anything and don’t wake me up until at least five hours have passed. Got it?” Rhys rubbed his eyes, not even caring anymore about the fact that he was leaving the god on his own without any supervision. 

“Copy that, Captain,” Jack said as he stretched out on the couch. “Sleep tight.”

***

The thing that woke Rhys up was the quietness in his apartment. Not the relaxing kind of quietness when you feel like you can just lie on your bed for half an hour after waking up; it was the quietness with a sinister undertone that made you automatically think that something was wrong. There was a moment when Rhys didn’t remember Jack at all, but then the events of the previous night came crashing down to his memory and he wanted to bury his head to his pillow and maybe suffocate himself.

Despite his thoughts, he got up, stretching the sleep away from his body, feeling the need for a long shower become urgent after the few hours of uncomfortable sleeping in his work clothes and becoming all sweaty. He gathered up a pair of pants and a dress shirt from his wardrobe and opened the door to the living room, eyes widening as he saw Jack sitting at his computer.

“How the hell did you get past my password? How do you even know how to use that thing?” Rhys threw his clothes on the couch and rushed to the computer, and Jack just grinned at him with a straight line of white teeth that were slightly sharp at the edges, shrugging like he hacked computers every day. 

“Believe it or not, human technology is not that hard to understand. I examined your stuff and figured you’d use something from them and have the most embarrassing password of them all. Really, ‘futureboss1’? Oh, and nice collection of porn you’ve got there. Never thought you’d be into that kind of shit.” 

Rhys’ cheeks grew hot and flustered as he pushed Jack off the seat and slammed his laptop shut, deciding to lock it somewhere safe. He had always thought that he wouldn’t need to use his ECHO eye as the password to his computer, but apparently he had been horribly wrong. “Y-you should learn to respect other people’s privacy. I don’t want you snooping around my stuff, not to mention my computer, which has things related to my work and e-mails that should be kept in secret. Do you have any idea how–?”

“Okay, I get it, kiddo. Privacy and all.” Jack threw his hands in the air. “Sorry, I guess. Won’t do it again.”

“You better not, or I’m going to–“ he tried to come up with something, “–you know.” 

“I know.” 

“Good.”

“By the way, what’s up with your arm? Doesn’t seem very ‘human’ to me.” Jack gestured towards Rhys’ cybernetic arm that was now visible since he didn’t have a glove or his coat on. 

Rhys had forgotten all about it. Normally he didn’t bother to cover it while he was at home, hating the way the fabric got caught between the joints every time he moved, so of course he had forgotten. “It’s, uh,” he swallowed and moved the arm behind his back, out of sight, “a cybernetic prosthesis. Nothing interesting about it, really.”

“No no, let me see it,” Jack insisted, grabbing Rhys’ shoulder and turning him around to look at the arm more carefully. “This is… awesome! How do you move it? Does it feel anything? Man, no wonder you were able to pull me up from the ground so easily. Do other humans have them too? I guess I was wrong about you not being able to grow limbs back. My bad.”

Rhys blinked, opening his mouth to say something, but no words came out. “You… like it?”

“Hell yeah!” Jack brought the arm close to his face, poking every part like a child who had gotten his first birthday present.

“Um, okay. You can stop now.” Rhys yanked the hand back to himself, but his lips had turned into a small smile. “I’m gonna take a shower, and after that we’re going shopping.” He then took a closer look at Jack’s appearance, which was horrendous, to say the least, with the ragged, dirty clothes. Never mind if they had been fancy once. “Actually, I’m going to have you take a shower too and let you borrow some clothes from my wardrobe.” 

“Whatever you say, pumpkin,” Jack said.

Rhys rolled his eyes at the ridiculous nicknames Jack was coming up with and walked to the bathroom. 

After taking a long shower and pushing Jack into the bathroom after him, Rhys was standing in front of the wardrobe with hands on his hips and brows furrowed in concentration. He didn’t have many clothes that would fit the god, who was not only bulkier but also a few inches shorter than him. He would have to buy him new clothes once they went out shopping.

“What am I thinking?” He grabbed a t-shirt, a jacket and a pair of jeans that would suit Jack just fine. He wouldn’t have to worry about his clothing after he had left him to the police station. 

He knocked on the bathroom door, not prepared to see Jack open it butt-naked without anything to cover his front, or anywhere else for that matter, and for a second or two Rhys’ gaze just _lingered_ there, mouth turning into a sand paper, until he turned his head away and hoped that his face wasn’t as red as it felt. 

“I gave you a towel for a reason,” Rhys said, handing him the clothes without looking at him. “And for god’s sake, turn that water off before my bill goes up to a hundred.” 

“Aw, Rhysie, didn’t know you’d never seen a naked man in real life before. Note taken.” 

The closing door muffled Jack’s ruthless laughter, and Rhys wondered how long he would survive with a person like Handsome Jack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seems like I wrote this chapter much faster than I first thought, lol. I just love writing the dialogue scenes between Jack and Rhys and they're probably my favourite parts to do. :D I hope you don't mind that this fic is kinda slow-paced; I don't want things to seem rushed.
> 
> Anyway, what did you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts too! And thanks for reading, it means the world to me.


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